Leif
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Post by Leif on Nov 10, 2015 14:53:51 GMT -8
Oh! I saw that movie. I'll probably check out the book. I enjoy mysteries generally and am always looking for some new ones to check out.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Nov 10, 2015 15:18:06 GMT -8
Also, I totally meant to recommend Archivist Wasp as a Halloween read, but I didn't finish by Halloween so I didn't.
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, some girls are born with a distinctive scar on their cheek and they are taken by a priest to become Archivists. The job of an Archivist is to catch ghosts and try to speak to them to learn what they want, what came before the collapse, what the afterlife is like, the usual stuff. This is a dangerous, thankless, and fairly fruitless endeavor, as ghosts are not able to speak about anything coherently and the Archivists are shunned by regular people. Wasp one day catches a ghost who can talk back, and it wants to bargain. Wasp winds up going on a journey to the underworld trying to recover a friend of the ghost's, all the while learning more about the time before and about how the world works now.
I thought this was a pretty interesting book. It definitely hits on a mythic feel, as you might note from virtually every blurb on the back of the book. It's relatively short, but I found it a surprisingly dense read. It was an interesting blend of myth, fantasy, and sci-fi.
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Taelac
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Post by Taelac on Nov 11, 2015 9:53:03 GMT -8
That sounds fascinating--time to hit the ILL again.
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Post by firebolt153 on Nov 11, 2015 18:18:53 GMT -8
Ah Ducky, I love that series! I've missed the last few but they're super good. I'm glad you like them
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Post by DementedDuck on Nov 15, 2015 13:12:22 GMT -8
Yeeeeah, love me some good crime fiction! After finishing that book I read The Lion's Game by Nelson DeMille. It's... similar? The protagonist, John Corey, is a pretty sarcastic dude, which I really enjoy. He's razor sharp and the dialogue he shares with other characters, as well as his internal dialogue, is really entertaining. Again, the book is written mostly from his perspective with a decent amount of input from the perpetrator, Asad Khalil, who is a terrorist.
The basic story is that the US ordered a bombing of a military camp in Libya, where he lived with his family; his dad was pretty important to the extremist movement. Ghadafi also lives here, which is why the place was bombed. So this guy is 16 when the place is bombed and he loses his entire family and vows revenge on the US. 14 years later he turns himself in at the US embassy in Paris as a defector, is loaded onto a plane in handcuffs with two federal agents guarding him, and when the plane touches down in New York everyone on board is dead and Khalil is gone. John Corey is part of the team of agents initially sent to pick him up from the airport and he has to do some quick detective work to figure out what the hell happened. While Corey is checking out the plane full of corpses, Khalil is in the secret federal office onsite, killing everyone in his way. He's out of the airport by the time the alert has been raised and the story follows him across the country, killing very specific people, whilst Corey and his team play catch up, trying to figure out why he's killing these people and therefore who he's going for next. It's hinted at that Khalil has a big endgame in mind, which turns out to have been buried very subtly earlier in the story, and is a pretty big twist. The reader is always privy to more details than Corey, thanks to the chapters written from Khalil's perspective, and so you get so wrapped up in Corey's race to the finish line that you forget to work out where that finish line may be.
Turns out DeMille has written several stories in the John Corey series, and I aim to read them all because he's a great character and I really enjoyed this book. Would highly recommend.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Nov 18, 2015 10:36:21 GMT -8
Reviews of the 20 Book of the Year nominees. Nimona nabbed a nominee in the YA section. Personally, the one about the octopi looks fascinating to me.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Nov 30, 2015 7:15:44 GMT -8
I can't remember if we have any Holmes aficionados on here (I think Aeth was, but well...) but if we do, they may be interested in Kim Newman's The Hound of the D'Urbevilles. They are Holmes inspired tales except they're tales about Moriarty told by sidekick, Col. Sebastian "Basher" Moran. I will say up front that there is surprisingly little Holmes in there, mostly in the last chapter, The Problem of the Final Adventure, natch. Some of them dovetail nicely with Holmes' stories, like The Study in Vermilion, others perhaps take inspiration from Holmes but are more related to other literature from the period, like the titular Hound of D'Urbevilles or The Red Planet League. The book as a whole is sort of a send up and continuation of The Great Game, wherein Holmes fans treat the stories as though they are more or less factual. The book purports to be a memoir of Moran found in a locked safe deposit box after the bank holding it was broadly implicated in all manner of fraudulent activities. There's a preface by a scholar of the era, and the book extends the same pretend realism to all sorts of literature from the turn of the century and beyond. Footnotes regularly referencing other mysteries, Zane Grey, and other villains (Raffles and Dr. Mabuse, for example, both make appearances).
We find out early on that Moriarty is a consulting criminal. He's more interested in the theory of crime than the yields of it. Basher is the counterpoint to Watson, a veteran drawn to Moriarty out of fear rather the love Watson bears Holmes. He's a big game hunter , a thrill seeker, and a card sharp. He's an unabashed misanthropist, often ranting about natives, the French, the Belgians, the Germans, women, capitalists, communists, Americans, and others. I enjoyed this book, there were several parts that got chuckles from me as well as some neat stories. It could have been a bit tighter, I think. The stories don't feel quite as interconnected as they might be, so the conclusion isn't quite as supported by the text as it might be. Still, it was a fun read, and I'd generally recommend it.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Dec 30, 2015 17:24:31 GMT -8
So on another forum, I signed up for their book challenge. If there's anyone around who would like to do and or talk about a book challenge, I'm interested. This is what I signed up for.
1) Vanilla Number 2) Something written by a woman 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published (up to a year. The year will be the day you start this challenge) 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. 17) The First book in a series 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection 22) It’s a Mystery.
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Taelac
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Post by Taelac on Jan 1, 2016 10:32:19 GMT -8
That sounds like fun, Leif! I'm in, and your list there looks great.
I was just popping in to review Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson. Lawson, perhaps better known as The Bloggess, has chronic depression, ADD, insomnia and anxiety disorder, and she writes about how she manages her mental illness and neuro-atypical conditions. She approaches her good days with the intent of doing wild and amazing things, to give her ammunition against the bad days when her illness makes her feel numb and useless. Taxidermied raccoons, blanket forts, koala costumes, and probably not taxidermied but definitely stinky actual koalas make appearances in hilarious adventures punctuated by tales of her struggle to manage basic tasks like taxes and get to her appointments on time...and with the right person. She seems a little unaware that most of her fellow sufferers don't have the option to be terrified to take a spontaneous trip to Australia in the first place, but she shares her stories of that trip with generous enthusiasm. Would recommend with a 4/5 to anyone fighting their own brain battle or caring about someone who is.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jan 3, 2016 10:33:17 GMT -8
So from last year, but I wanted to finish the series before I reviewed, but The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone is a pretty great, original take on fantasy. It's set in a world 50 years or so after the gods have been overthrown. The few that remain are in service to their communities. In places where no gods remain, their role has been taken over by powerful Craftsmen and Craftswomen, who use their power to essentially set up large corporations to handle the duties of gods. Craft is essentially magic, power drawn from souls and starlight, and it functions via contract. So yes, we have magic as contract law, and it leads to some books a lot more interesting that one might suppose. The focus on sort of law and corporations make me think a little of someone like John Grisham.
Three Parts Dead focuses on woman trying to get a job at one of the major Craft firms, essentially a law firm. She's brought on as an aide to a partner during the probate that happens after the god Kos dies unexpectedly. She investigates the cause of death to see how power needs to be apportioned among claimants.
Two Serpents Rise is set in an Aztec themed city and focuses mostly on a young employee in the risk management department of Red King Consolidated. The Red King overthrew the local deity during the God Wars and took over the role of providing water to this desert city. Unfortunately, a reservoir nearby has become infested with monsters that can travel through the water and pipes into the city. Who poisoned the reservoir? Does it have anything to do with the upcoming buyout of a large dowsing concern? Can he clean it up in time for the big deal to go through?
Full Fathom Five is set in a Hawaiian type island archipelago. When their gods didn't come back after the God Wars, the islanders started creating idols. Too simple to be gods, the idols serve as a focus of worship and a place to store and invest soulstuff. One of the chief "Theologians" notices some irregularities when one of the idols fails and she searches for the cause.
They're all pretty quick, compelling reads. I found them to be exciting, but have a depth that the John Grisham comparison earlier would belie. There are reflections on capitalism, exploitation by corporations, abuses of the justice system, and more. They avoid preachiness, I felt, and the various critiques feel timely. The series as a whole does a good job with screentime for both men and women. While all 3 take place in the same world, they're in disparate locations, and there's little to no character overlap. Mostly, a character or two from the first two appear in the third, but there's no specific reason to read them in order. The first just lays out what's going on a bit more. On the who, would recommend.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jan 22, 2016 17:47:52 GMT -8
Lonesome Dove: This book was incredible. I've never read a Western before, and I'd forgotten the thrill of reading a completely new genre. The unfamiliarity makes every cliche seems genius and every standard plot element a twist. It's a glorious feeling that I don't get often enough when I stick to more familiar genres, so that alone made this book worth it for me. But it was also worth it in its own right. Lonesome Dove has a sprawling cast of 40 or so characters, but I guess the main one is Augustus McCrae, former captain in the Texas Rangers, now a resident of Lonesome Dove, a little town in Texas that hardly merits the name. Lonesome Dove is the kind of one-street town where the saloon is the center of entertainment; and Lonesome Dove is the kind of book where people say things like "I guess those dern Indians'll be halfway to Nebraska by now" and fall in love with whores and shoot rattlesnakes with pistols. It's the kind of story where people drink whiskey and rope cattle and ford rivers and cry at unexpected moments. The plot centers around Gus and (most of) the others embarking on a cattle drive to Montana, and follows their triumphs and trials along the way. Characters range from an Arkansas sheriff to the man he's hunting to a woman raising horses in Nebraska, and events include everything from dust storms to bar-room brawls. More than that I won't say for fear of spoiling, but ultimately, despite being an adventure story Lonesome Dove is about loss: how characters deal with death, and regret, and fear; what family means to them and what it doesn't mean to them in the face of the dangers of the prairie; and what it takes, physically and emotionally, to survive in the West. The only thing I found hard to adjust to in the book was the way it suddenly switches point-of-view characters. I'm used to clear indications when we as a reader change perspectives, but Lonesome Dove tends to shift subtly and rapidly in the midst of interactions. Sort of like: Bob thought Anna was the most beautiful woman he'd ever met, and he'd been trying to work up the nerve to talk to her for months. After an hour of nervous pacing, he approached her porch and tipped his hat. "How do you do?" he asked. "Well enough," said Anna. She knew Bob was in love with her, and he was handsome enough in his own way. But she had no intention of pursuing him. If only he knew, she reflected, that she had married Charles Dougherty last August... And then some other character might join the conversation and we'd switch to his perspective. It jarred me throughout the book, but I got more used to it over time, and it was a minor stylistic thing in the midst of a brilliant story. In sum, read Lonesome Dove, especially if you haven't read a Western before and are looking for something outside of your usual reading material. AL is right. Lonesome Dove was real good.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Feb 1, 2016 9:31:57 GMT -8
So I'm behind the pace this month, but did read my long book, so that's a plus. Most of the month was devoted to a cattle drive.
1. My Dead Body by Charlie Huston. I was trying to get through my end of December reading so I wouldn't have to admit to starting the year by reading the last book in a vampire detective series. As a series, I enjoyed it. It had Huston's characteristic style, and though action-y wasn't driven at the same breakneck pace as Caught Stealing. My biggest problem was the main character, Joe, always seemed to be the biggest sarcastic asshole he could be, often to his detriment. Still, I enjoyed the book and the series. If you're going to read 1 vampire detective series this year, you could do a lot worse. It's also set in NYC.
2. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. 2 retired Texas Rangers round up a herd of cattle and drive them Montana. I found the first part a bit slow, but moved through the last 2 parts pretty quickly. There are a ton of characters, and backstories to match. Parts of it are a coming of age story. Others are about old men who society has moved on from. On the whole, I really enjoyed this and found more depth than I was expecting, there's a lot more going on than just Cowboys and Indians. Though it's not short on those either. I'm counting it as a long book, but if I come up short, I'm totally filing it as the first in a series and a book I've been meaning to read as well. 5/5
3. Made in America, An informal history of the English Language in the US by Bill Bryson. This book sets out to look at different eras and aspects of American history. So there's chapters about Colonial times, The Founding Fathers, Westerns, The invention of the car and airplane, etc. On the whole I found it to be interesting, and with a lot of good trivia bits. It was published in the 90s, so unfortunately nothing about the internet and the way that's changed language. It does take a stab at political correctness, and is just a little cringy, but not outright awful.
I'm checking off categories 10 and 11 this month.
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Taelac
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Post by Taelac on Feb 29, 2016 20:47:17 GMT -8
Hey, sorry for the delay. I actually do have some books to review, but I've been sorting out some medical ish* since the middle of January. I'll try to get those posted this week sometime.
*I'm mostly fine and otherwise improving. Can PM for details, but I don't want to bore everyone with further off-topicness.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Mar 1, 2016 9:15:05 GMT -8
It was a big reading month for me. It helps when you've read a bunch of short ones. Like 5 books under 250 pages, including 2 under 150. I'll post up some quicky reviews later.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Mar 2, 2016 18:05:41 GMT -8
Previously Read: 1. My Dead Body by Charlie Huston. 2. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. 3. Made in America, An informal history of the English Language in the US by Bill Bryson.
4. Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson- This was pretty different from your usual fantasy book, and I really enjoyed it. A girl from a newly colonized island excels on the state exams, only to be faced by a rebellion at her knew post. Rebellion, economics, sneakiness, it's all here.
5. Ru by Kim Thuy- This story of a Vietnamese refugee, told in vignettes, looks at different aspects of the refugee experience. The vignettes tend to flow from theme to theme rather than chronological ordering. Some of the vignettes were quite poignant, others were just sort of short stories. As I try and type out a quick description, I realize there was a lot squeezed into few pages. How the Vietnam changed, how the protagonist and her family were changed by the war and later by the American dream. As the author was also a refugee, I wonder how much of the novel is biographical, or whether it's just heavily informed by her experiences. Nonwhite and woman author.
6. The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester- A classic sci-fi story of revenge in a world where personal teleportation is possible. I knew little about this going in, and I wound up really enjoying it. Gully Foyle, the abandoned survivor of a wreck in space, is on a quest for vengeance. He's also the target of some major corporations as he unkowingly carries a secret that could change the course of a solar system-wide war. This was really good, and had some aspects reminiscent of PKD. Sci Fi and book I've been meaning to read for awhile.
7. Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey- Grabbed this one a whim from the new book shelf at the library. I won't lie, the fact that's a fourfer for TBC was a factor. A set of 10 short stories, told from the perspective of 10 animals killed in human conflicts. Each story is also an homage written in the style of a different author. If you've ever wanted to read a story told by Tolstoy's turtle, Colette's cat, or perhaps thought a mussel should take a Kerouacian journey, this is the book the for you. It is in turns funny, sad, haunting and heroic but never just devolves into the wallowing mess of animal death that you might fear. Despite grabbing it on a whim, this might be the best book I read this month. It's a short story collection narrated by animals written by a woman published in 2015 (in the US, 2014 overseas).
8. The Language of Food, A Linguist Reads the Menu by Dan Jurafsky - Jurafsky looks at the language of food in two different ways. The first is expected, based on the subtitle; it's how language is used talking about food, whether on a menu or in reviews, and what that tells us about us and about the food. The second is tracing the history of some foods, linguistically and culinarily. The other bit you learn how a vinegary beef stew winds up becoming both ceviche and fish and chips after a few hundred years, or what the relationship is between macaroons, macarons and macaroni. This was a fun quick read full of interesting trivia and info about food and language.
9. Paris Nocturne by Patrick Modiano - I saw the author mentioned somewhere, and then happened to run across this at the library the next day, so I checked it out. A young man is hit by a car. In an ether soaked haze at the hospital, he thinks he recognizes the car's driver from his past. When he checks out, he mysteriously receives an envelope full of cash. This begins a search, through his memories and through Paris, for the woman driving a sea-green Fiat. This one fell flat for me. It wasn't actively bad, I just wasn't really engaged and I almost forgot it typing up this list, despite finishing it a week ago. A new book.
10. Last First Snow by Max Gladstone - The 4th published, and first chronological, book in The Craft Sequence. I really like this series, which I've described previously, so I'll mention the blurb on this book which says something about assimilating Lord of Light, American Gods and John Grisham, and that gets the feel. This one is set in the same city as book 2 and features Temoc, The King in Red, and Elayne Kevarian (from book 1). This tells the story of a poor neighborhood rebelling against gentrification. A good story and fleshes out the history of 3 characters that were relatively minor in books to date. You know the series has to have at least 1 more book, but I feel it's worth noting that they're all complete stories and you could pick up and read one without reading anymore, were you so inclined. Good series, good book. Also new book
1) Vanilla Number 10/45 2) Something written by a woman - Ru, Only the Animals 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - Ru 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - Only the Animals 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction - The Stars my Destination 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - Lonesome Dove 11) Read something about or set in NYC - My Dead Body 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published - Only the Animals, Paris Nocturne, Last First Snow 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now - Lonesome Dove, The Stars My Destination 17) The First book in a series 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection - Only the Animals 22) It’s a Mystery.
I currently have Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, A Night in Lonesome October, and Anno Dracula checked out from the library. Good times, good times.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Mar 4, 2016 8:20:34 GMT -8
So stuck at home nursing the sick, I blew through A Night in Lonesome October in a day and a half. It's awesome. If you want a book with talking animals, Frankenstein, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, werewolves, and Lovecraftian horror this is the book for you. This was so much fun. Absolutely recommend. 5 stars.
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Taelac
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Post by Taelac on Mar 11, 2016 21:34:12 GMT -8
That sounds awesome. (I was apparently not done tripping over medical issues, but I haven't forgotten I've promised some reviews.)
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Post by wrecker15 on Mar 31, 2016 7:21:41 GMT -8
So this isn't really a *book* per se, but it is a story so I thought I'd put it here. Tae introduced a few of us to a collaborative writing game a couple of years back. Then, somewhere along the way, ROMS nostalgia hit and Furare and I wanted to write something about it. So now that Storium has gone public, I present to you a more fully fleshed out story of ROMS: Words & Weapons. Hope y'all enjoy!
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Taelac
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Post by Taelac on Apr 1, 2016 18:35:34 GMT -8
Oh, awesome, I look forward to reading that!
For #2 of the reading challenge, I submit Discount Armageddon, the first book of Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series. The Bogeyman is real, but he's not under your bed or in your closet...he's busy owning a strip joint that employs several of NYC's Cryptid population, plus one Cryptid hunter by name of Verity Price, permitted to work there by virtue of her family's conservation-minded stance toward Cryptid ecology. After all, if unicorns--with their water-purifying abilities--hadn't been hunted to extinction in Europe, a good many devastating plagues might have never happened. Now, rumor has it that a Cryptid long thought to have been extinct may be living deep beneath the city streets. Verity is faced with determining whether it would be best to protect what could be the last of its kind, or whether its vast potential for destruction means she will be required to kill a dragon.
Lively paced urban fantasy-mystery, McGuire's characters run to surprising depth, each with their own flaws and virtues, wrestling as much with their consciences as their foes and the city itself. Would recommend to anyone with a fondness for mythical creatures or monster movies.
More hopefully soon.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Apr 8, 2016 6:01:06 GMT -8
It was another big reading month, helped out a bit at the start by me staying at home and playing nurse, so I blew through 12 and 13. My favorite book of the month was A Night in the Lonesome October. I posted about it earlier, but it was super fun.
11. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara by Ben Fountain - A book of short stories, all set sort of around revolutions. You're never really dealing with revolutionaries too directly here, it's more the grad student kidnapped by them in Colombia, the washed up golfer who becomes the pro for the military junta in Myanmar, an NGO worker caught up in diamond smuggling in Sierra Leone, things of that nature. There are some here that are pretty humorous, others somewhat grim, and many that ride the line between the two. I enjoyed this. This was recently published 12. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny - A collection of Victorian characters and their animals gather for a great game. The nature of the game is slowly revealed as the month leading up to Halloween is chronicled by Snuff, the faithful canine companion of Jack the Ripper. This was great. I checked it out from the library, but I intend to buy it so I can re-read. 13. Anno Dracula by Kim Newman - Van Helsing and his crew fail to kill Dracula. When they are regrouping in the aftermath, Dracula worms his way into the favor of the Queen, becoming Prince Consort. Suddenly vampirism is the popular new way to socially advance. An interesting idea with some good scenes, overall just flat though. It also suffered being read right against Lonesome October, since that was a really well done book set in same era with the everyone and the kitchen sink mentality. If you read the complete set of addenda, it'd make the 500 page requirement. I didn't, and I wouldn't recommend doing so. Also the first in a series, though I don't intend to read the rest. 14. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome - Three young men decide to get away from the hustle and bustle of London and take a boat trip down the Thames. Originally intended as a travelogue, it became more popular for the comedy. The comedy was good, and reminded me some of Wodehouse. The original intentions come out in reflections on the signing of the Magna Carta and other historical and philosophical ruminations, but those didn't do much for me. A book written in the 1800s 15. Carter and Lovecraft by Jonathan L Howard - A detective story in which the private detective descendant of Randolph Carter and the bookstore owning descendant of HP Lovecraft solve mysterious murders. There were some definite callbacks to classic Lovecraft, and some well done portions. Despite the cover, there aren't tentacles. This is more the Innsmouth end of Lovecraft. Howard has said this may be the first of a series. I'll most likely pick up any future books in the series. This was published in the last year. 16. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor - Really a novella, this clocked in at around 90 pages. Binti is the first of her tribe (the Himba of Namibia) selected to attend the prestigious galactic university. She must grow up fast when her transport is attacked by aliens. The blurb on the back said it was a tense intimate coming of age story in space. That's about right. This is the second book I've ready by Okorafor, and enjoyed this. It sounds a bit trite, but I like the way the story hung together. It felt like there was more going on than just kids in space. Written by a woman, non-white author and recently published. 17. Claws of the Cat by Susan Spann - I grabbed this because I saw the third book in the series, The Flask of the Drunken Master, in the new book section and wanted to start at the beginning. This is a series of mysteries set in 16th century Japan. The detectives are a ninja and a Jesuit priest. Together they navigate the difficult social structure to solve crime. Despite being a bit cheesy, this was a fairly solid mystery. Some red herrings and unexpected twists and turns. This is the sort of series where if there's not much else at the library striking my fancy I'll grab one to fill some time. The first of a series of mysteries, and written by a woman. Three-fer! 18. Stray Souls by Kate Griffin - A followup or companion series to her Matthew Swift urban fantay series. It focuses on Magicals Anonymous, a support group for the magically inclined. Our Lady of 4am has gone missing, as have a number of smaller spirits. The Midnight Mayor is tied up in politics, and it falls to Sharon, a would-be shaman, and her ragtag bunch to figure out what's going on. On the whole, I find Griffin's urban fantasy stuff to be fast paced, imaginative, and fun. This did not disappoint. I'll definitely be reading the other book in the series. 19. Version Control by Dexter Palmer - A sci-fi story set in the near future in a world seemingly run by Big Data. Stores use cameras to anticipate your size and which clothes will fit well, social networks ubiquitously track every aspect of your life, and even the President may but into your Skype calls with a personalized message relating to what you're talking about. It's about our public performance of our private selves, and the way tragedy can shape your life. Also, there's a time machine. Had I not read A Night in the Lonesome October, this would be the best book of the month. Sci-fi, recently published, nonwhite author, over 500 pages (at least some versions).
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Taelac
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Post by Taelac on May 27, 2016 17:24:56 GMT -8
For #16, I read Ursula K. Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan. A young girl is taken from her home and family to become the high priestess of an ancient power dwelling in darkness beneath the temple. The tale follows her as she grows up and learns to perform her duties--and to outmaneuver the elder priestesses who seek to use her to their own ends. The arrival of a stranger from across the ocean will challenge everything that she believes to be true, including her very identity. Part of The Earthsea Cycle, Le Guin offers another slice of her richly varied world, exploring the dustiest corners of human culture. The book can offer both a quick trip through fantasy and hours of philosophical consideration, depending on the reader's interest.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on May 28, 2016 6:59:05 GMT -8
You know, somehow the only Le Guin I've read was Left Hand of Darkness in college. I feel like I ought to correct that.
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Taelac
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Post by Taelac on May 28, 2016 14:51:53 GMT -8
She builds very interesting worlds.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on May 31, 2016 7:23:30 GMT -8
Realized I didn't get April in here. The best of the month were Ballad of Black Tom and Crooked. I think some here would very much enjoy The Watchmaker of Filigree Street as well.
20. Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff - In Jim Crow America, young black veteran becomes the target of an ancient and secret cult because he's a blood relative of the founder. His whole family gets caught up in a tale of Lovecraftian haunted houses, evil books, curses, and spooky aliens, as well as redlining, sundown towns, and racist sheriffs. 21. Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart - A novelization of the true story of one of America's first female deputy sheriff's. After the Kopp sisters' buggy is wrecked by a reckless driver, the oldest sister, Constance seeks money for repair. When her pleas for remuneration are met with harassment, she goes undercover to catch the dastard. The details of the story are drawn from newspapers, police reports, and letters of the day. There's one story line with no basis in fact and the epilogue does clarify some of that. Written by a woman. 22. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle - This is a novella rewriting Lovecraft's Horror at Red Hook with the protagonist being a con man from Harlem. I liked this a lot, a great spin on Lovecraft. A nonwhite Author. 23. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley - I wasn't sure what I was getting into here. I was imagining a clever clockwork world of some sort, and it does have some of that aspect. Mostly, this is the story of a relationship between a young man working with British intelligence and an exceedingly clever watchmaker who may or may not have ties to Irish bombers.This was unexpected but good. Written by a woman. 24. The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji - While the English translation is recent, this is an older mystery novel that apparently spurred a renaissance in Japanese mysteries, moving them back towards a classic style. This is intended to be very much a classic locked room type mystery where you gather your clues and figure out whodunnit. 7 Students in a mystery club go to spend a week at the Decagon House, the home of a rich eccentric architect who died in a murder/suicide affair. That seems plenty morbid to me, but then the students start being killed on at a time. Can you pick who the killer is? A nonwhite author. 25. The Girl with the Ghost Eyes by MH Boroson - Set in 19th century Sacramento Chinatown it follows a young widow who is a Daoist exorcist. Old ways struggle against assimilation when it looks like an evil magician is going to raise a horror from ancient legend to lay waste to a rival tong. This was a bit cheesy in some regards, but it's a unique setting and I thought an interesting twist on your usual ghost stories. In some ways reminded me of Archivist Wasp. Supposed to be the first in the series, I'll probably read the next as well. 26. The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery - This details Montgomery's experiences getting to know the octopuses at an aquarium. There's a lot (though not as much as you'd expect) about octopodes here. There are also a lot of reflections on the nature of consciousness, and how that might apply to octopus. This was an fascinating book, though I thought there were some leaps in the consciousness and octopus assumptions. I read it because I was interested in octopus, and enjoyed it. Written by a woman 27. Crooked by Austin Grossman - What if Richard Nixon was not our worst president? What if, instead, he was the last president to fully grasp the powers granted by the Constitution and use them to protect America from the escalating occult attacks being pursued by the Russians during the Cold War? I found this premise to be interesting and amusing. Despite the way the blurb is stated, this primarily focuses on Nixon's rise as a congressman and as Eisenhower's VP. The presidential portion could have used some more focus, but I really enjoyed this.
And May! The clear winner for may was In the Time of the Butterflies. I've previously recommended Kate Griffins Matthew Swift series, and will do so again. A Spy Among Friends could almost be read as the worst played game of ROMS ever. If you like spy stories, this is a well done one.
28. A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben MacIntyre - It's the story of Kim Philby, told primarily through his relationships with others in MI6, particularly his close friend Nicholas Elliott. MacIntyre takes the stance that the Britain's version of the "good ol' boy" network was crucial in letting Philby get away with it as long as he did. It sheds some interesting light on the escape of Philby as well. If this were fiction, it'd be almost unbelievable. The fact that it actually happened is somewhat mind boggling. A story just rife with incompetence and alcohol. I'd recommend this. 29. The Great & Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms by Ian Thornton - There's a long subtitle, but somehow it wasn't the one on my book, despite being on Amazon and Goodreads, so I dunno. Johan Thoms is an extraordinary young man. He's well read, a chess player of no small talent, and is equally at home with students and dukes. One thing he cannot do is drive in reverse. This generally isn't a problem until he becomes the chauffeur for Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He spends the rest of his life running and hiding from the world created by assassination. This was an interesting book. I can't decide how much I like it. Some parts I really enjoyed. I feel like it's generally well written and snappy with a worldly frankness that lends some humor. At other times I feel like the author is a big dbag. Maybe it's some sort of shaggy dog penis joke. 30. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende - The part that you know and love is the first 40% of the book. The last 60% is Bastian wandering and having adventures in Fantastica. Will he ever make it back home? The first bit was great. The second half really needed tightening up. It got draggy. The physical book was very interesting, with all the text being colored, either plum for the real world or a dark green for Fantastica. Each chapter had sort of an old style full page illumination for the first letter, and there were 26 chapters one for each letter. 31. In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez - A novelization of the story of the Mirabal sisters, 4 sisters from the Dominican Republic, 3 of whom will killed by Trujillo for being revolutionaries. The story details the abuses of Trujillo and the cult of personality built around him. The book was endorsed by the surviving sister, Dede, so while the events in the story aren't per se true, there is an underlying truth to the story. This was a fantastic book. Easily the best of the month and will likely be in the running for best of the year. 32. The Glass God by Kate Griffin - The second, and at this time final, book in the Magicals Anonymous series, the sort of companion series to Kate Griffins Matthew Swift books. This was good, and very much in the vein of the rest of the series. I like the world she's created. Griffin says she may return, but I'm a little curious as to how. She's sort of written herself into a corner with Swift, in that he's so strong there need to be reasons that he's not doing everything. 33. The Devil in Silver by Victor Lavalle - Checked this out because I really enjoyed Black Tom by Lavalle last month. A man is thrown into a psych ward by overworked police only to learn that there's a secret behind the big silver door. The devil lives there. Is it a delusion among the crazies, the result of an overzealous schedule of medication, or the supernatural? I liked this a lot more than the Goodreads reviews, based on rating. I think that's because it's billed as literary horror. The horror aspect loses out some in the larger story. Really it's more a story about systems and institutions and how the treat people. I'll likely be picking up something else from Lavalle in the future as well.
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Taelac
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Post by Taelac on Jun 26, 2016 20:52:53 GMT -8
Currently reading What If by Randall Munroe, the creator of the webcomic xkcd. It's slow going, because I have to stop for a few hours or days after every vignette to think about it, but it's pretty amazing if you like science and the surreal. Going to call this one for #15, it being relatively recentish...I picked it up in hardback in the local Hastings clearance sale. Need to go back there later this week and see what else has been marked down--it's the biggest bookstore in town, but it's definitely on the chopping block after the bankruptcy announcement, and I don't know when it will finally close.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jun 27, 2016 5:43:46 GMT -8
That's sad. Hastings are uncommon here, but I had one in college that I used to go to a lot. And I logged a lot of time at a giant 3 story Hastings in Amarillo one weekend. I've had my eye on the What If book as well. Glad to hear it's interesting.
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Taelac
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Be bold. It makes your enemies hesitate.
Posts: 357
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Post by Taelac on Aug 1, 2016 17:12:21 GMT -8
It is sad. It has been great for my personal library, though. Some more reviews to come soon.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Aug 2, 2016 6:04:05 GMT -8
July was a big month for me. Some folks (if anyone still reads) might enjoy Time and Tenacity by Hannah Vale. I picked it up because she's a librarian at my local library and I saw her clearly excited to place her book on the new book shelves. It's a time travelling Jane Austen novel. A bit rough around the edges, and definitely seems like a first book, but fun.
OH! I almost forgot Six Gun Snow White! Snow White rewritten as a Western and with a heavy dose of a young woman trying to find her place in the world, both as a woman and as the daughter of a Native American woman and a white mining baron. This was good.
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Taelac
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Be bold. It makes your enemies hesitate.
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Post by Taelac on Aug 27, 2016 16:04:53 GMT -8
Hm. Both of those sound interesting.
1) Vanilla Number 2) Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire (written by a woman) 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays. 8) Koko Takes a Holiday by Kieren Shea (science fiction)
Set in a speculative post-nuclear-war future earth where corporations are the governing bodies, holding or acquiring resources through the use of mercenary soldiers, this book follows retired merc Koko after her bordello is foreclosed on with extreme prejudice and some fairly heavy ordinance. Bouncing off the surface in a contraband escape pod, Koko soon learns that there's a hit out on her, and she is forced to call in favors from some unsavory sorts while fighting for her life. Ultimately, she decides to take the fight back to the person who wants her dead.
Some gore, in keeping with the world-building; some use of slurs that were far less necessary and so took away from my enjoyment of the book. 3.5/5, recommend for people who enjoy the sort of distopian future tales this is, but others could probably find better ways to spend their time.
9) Something written by a musician 10) Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle by Phil and Kaja Foglio (over 500 pages-okay, it was 496 pages, but I'll put my lifetime page count up against anybody else's any day of the week)
A novelization of a portion of the Girl Genius webcomic by the same authors, and an excellent alternative for people who may find the extensive archives of the comic too daunting to catch up on, but who would like to start reading it to share in their steampunk friends' interest. As someone who has been reading the comic for over a decade, it was nice to have a concise way to revisit some of those earlier parts of the story, and I'll pick up the other novelizations to go with the graphic novels. 5/5 everyone should read GG.
11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Possess by Gretchen McNeil (YA)
Fairly two-dimensional Catholic-inspired possession/exorcism story, with fairly two-dimensional characters, though the teen girl protagonist is interesting enough to keep me reading, even though I figured out the twist pretty early in the book. 3/5 modestly creepy and better than being stuck in a bus station with nothing to read.
14) Wildcard! 15) What If by Randall Munroe (recently published) 16) The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. LeGuin (wanted to read for a while) 17) Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn(first in a series)
Kitty, the most ironically named werewolf in existence, is a Denver DJ whose night-time show has morphed into one where she takes calls from people about the supernatural. When a hit man calls her show, it turns out that he's in the building, and the hit requires that he take her out on-air. Now Kitty has to figure out who has it out for her, while navigating her "normal" life with her suburban family and trying to figure out how she best fits into her were-pack.
While there is some heavy reliance on debunked theories of wolf interaction, and I've been warned that the series wraps with some far too literal deus ex machina, this first book was different enough to excite me, and I now own five of the seven books in the series. 4/5
18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 21) Defy the Dark ed. Saundra Mitchell (short stories)
This collection of short stories all have a single common thread: they are all set at night. As with many such collections, some of the stories are excellent, and others are just a little too weird to be good, but overall it was an enjoyable read, with just enough truly creepy selections to alter my dreams, but not so much as to make me stop reading it in bed at night. 4/5 recommend to anyone wanting some after-dark exploration.
22) It’s a Mystery.
More to come as I get to them.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Sept 20, 2016 11:42:22 GMT -8
I neglected to post my August update. Two I'd specifically recommend are A General Theory of Oblivion and The Gentleman.
General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa is a story about the Angolan civil war and the ensuing 30 years of trying to be their own country. It focuses largely on scenes seen by Ludo, an agoraphobic woman who barricaded herself into her apartment the night before the civil war began. That actually happened. Agualusa takes these scenes and expands them out weaving a tapestry that encompasses various aspects of Angolan life. It's a beautifully written story that's a delight to read as you start seeing it all tie together. Probably the best book I've read this year.
The Gentleman by Forrest Leo is a very different type of book. I'd describe it mostly as a romp. A mediocre Victorian poet inadvertently sells his wife to the Devil for inspiration. Soon he's on an adventure his brother in law, his butler, and his kid sister to find their way to Hell and recover his wife. This was just a plain fun read. If the idea of a poet trying to explain to everyone how the Dev'l stole his wife and having to always clarify what he means seems humorous to you, this is your cup of tea.
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